Thirty-three North Koreans face
execution after being charged with attempting to overthrow the repressive regime of Kim Jong-un.

The
Koreans have landed themselves in hot water after it emerged they had
worked with South Korean Baptist missionary Kim Jung-wook and received
money to set up 500 underground churches. It is understood they will be
put to death in a cell at the State Security Department.

Experts believe the North Koreans are
being punished more harshly than usual as North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un combats a wave of dissatisfaction at the regime's isolationist
"juche" doctrine.

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Sorry: Kim Jung Wook, a South Korean Baptist missionary, says he is sorry for his 'anti-state crimes'

Interrogated: The missionary speaks under the portrait of late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il during a news conference in Pyongyang

Missionary
Kim Jung-wook was arrested and jailed last year for allegedly trying to
establish underground churches. Last week he held a press conference
at which he apologized for committing "anti-state" crimes and appealed
for his release from North Korean custody.

He
told reporters that he was arrested in early October after entering the
North from China and trying to make his way to Pyongyang with Bibles,
Christian instructional materials and movies.

Kim Jung-wook said he had received assistance from South Korea's intelligence agency.

"I
was thinking of turning North Korea into a religious country, and
destroying its present government and political system," he said at the
time.

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"I received money from the intelligence services and followed
instructions from them, and arranged North Koreans to act as their
spies. And I also set up an underground church in China, in Dandong, and
got the members to talk and write, for me to collect details about the
reality of life in North Korea, and I provided this to the intelligence
services."

A South Korean
intelligence source in China took issue with Kim's account, saying that
the missionary did not enter North Korea voluntarily, but was kidnapped
by agents of the Pyongyang government in China.

During Kim Jung-wook's press conference,
North Korean officials also showed video of North Koreans who confessed
to coming into contact with the missionary.

The North Korean newspaper
Chosun Ilbo reported that they said that Kim told them to build a
church on the site where a massive statue of North Korea's founder, Kim
Il-Sung, stands in Pyongyang whenever the regime falls.

North
Korea continues to hold Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who was
detained while leading a group on a tour of North Korea in 2012 and
later sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Bae
was moved to a hospital last summer in poor health, but said at the
news conference that he was being transferred back to prison.

All smiles: Kim Jong Un (right), smiles with Vice Marshal and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Choe Ryong Hae (centre) and Vice Marshal and the military's General Staff Chief Ri Yong Ho in 2012

Treachery: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Choe Ryong Hae pictured in July last year, before rumours of a disappearance surfaced

Kim Jong Un is fast gaining a reputation for brutality and destroying those closest to him.

Yesterday
there were reports that North Korea's number two leader Choe Ryong
Hae's had disappeared and there are fears that he is the lastest to be
purged.

Choe is said
to have displeased the leader by taking management of several
state-owned industries. It is understood that Choe is in jail and being
interrogated.

Choe held several top
positions in the North Korean leadership after Kim ordered the
high-profile execution of Jang Song Thaek, the previous incumbent and
Kim's uncle and mentor.

Kim's uncle Jang, 67, was executed in December, after being accused of plotting to overthrow the communist regime.

Jang was married to Kim Kyong Hui, Kim's aunt and former leader Kim Jong-Il's sister and was killed by firing squad.

It has since been claimed that members
of his uncle's family were rounded up by the dozen following his arrest
and subsequent death in December.

Jang Song-Thaek's children, brothers and grandchildren were condemned to death, according to media reports in South Korea.

As
well as his uncle, other high-ranking members of the military have been
purged by Kim Jong-Un, including three defence ministers and three
chiefs of the army's general staff.

Kim Chol, the vice minister of the army, was reportedly put to death in October 2012 by soldiers firing mortar rounds at him.

In
August last year, members of a female musical group, Unhasu Orchestra -
which included the dictator's ex-girlfriend - were reportedly publicly
machine-gunned apparently for watching pornography and filming
themselves naked.

There are said to have been between 40 to 80 public mass executions in North Korea in 2013.

Taken out: Kim Jong-Un ordered the execution of his uncle Jang Song-Thaek (left) in December last year, after a special military tribunal found him guilty of treason

Executed: Jang Song Thaek, previously considered the second most powerful man in the secretive state, is seen with his hands bound as he is dragged into the court by uniformed personnel shortly before his death